#But this is probably gonna be Biden vs. Trump Round 2

[toaarcan]

There's a total of one challenger for Biden's chair at the moment (Marianne Williamson withdrew last week), Dean Phillips. So what's he like?

I'm just gonna let that one sit.

Phillips also has zero delegates to Biden's 91, and he's not even on the ballot in a handful of states because they can just do that (See Trump being taken off the ballot in a few states' Republican primaries). So the chances of him winning anything are pretty low. Parties just don't tend to remove incumbent presidents if they don't have to. They've got their guy in already, they're going to choose stability over anything else, especially at this stage in the game, and that's why most politicians don't try.

It's also extremely unlikely that you're going to find an American candidate with a better stance on Gaza at all. The US government is extremely pro-Israel, for a variety of reasons. Some of them make bank off of selling bombs to Netanyahu. Some of them are deathly afraid to criticise a man who screams "Antisemitism!" every time anybody wants to criticise his actions, a claim bolstered by the glut of actual antisemitism that's happening. Some of them are millennialist nutbars who want all the Jewish people back in Israel so Jesus can come back. Some of them just hate Muslims more than they hate Jews.

Phillips is actually fairly decent on this topic, for what it's worth. He believes in a two-state solution and has criticised Netanyahu publicly. He supports Israel as an entity but not the policies and genocidal intentions of its current ruling party, which is probably about as good as you're going to get.

So hey, by all means, if this guy is on your state's ballot and you like the sound of him (and please do more research than this before you make that call, my comments aren't going to give you the whole story), vote for him in the primary. Him losing (which is the most likely outcome, 91-0 and all) is not carte blanche to give up.

The most likely outcome is still Biden vs. Trump, and yeah, sorry, if/when that's what happens, it's still gonna boil down to "You have to vote for grandad to stop fascism, and do not let Gaza be a wedge issue because the open, screaming Islamophobe is going to be much fucking worse."

There are certainly other things that could happen, Phillips could pull off the upset of the century and actually secure the nomination (extremely unlikely based on how the system works, but still), one or both of the old fuckers could up and die on the spot, they're both ancient, and Trump's poor health and near-death of COVID are factors too, but America is not currently in a position where there are many options besides "Elephant party wants a nationwide abortion ban, criminalisation of all LGBT+ identities, Russia to take over Europe, apparently a military dictatorship, and more genocide, vote donkey party despite all the problems because seriously you cannot let the other guys get their way again.

It's frustrating how, regardless of where you fall, there's this assumption of a binary between Biden or Trump. Voting in November or not voting at all. Those are the only options we have guys. Biden or Trump. Vote or no vote. It's so easy to fall into binaries. If you criticize Biden or his policies, the assumption is you're obviously angling to abstain from voting and land us all back in the same mess as 2016. If you try to urge people to vote who actually ARE getting nilhistic about it, obviously you're a liberal shill who supports the same atrocities Biden does. On some level I get it, because third-party candidates simply aren't viable.

BUT LET ME TELL YOU ALL A LITTLE SECRET!

There's this little thing happening earlier in the year, before November. It's at different times in different states, and you should go look up when it's happening in yours, but it's really important to know about. It is the Democratic primaries.

Because guess what? The world is bigger than two shitty old men. Instead of going to bat for the slightly less shitty of the two, I'd rather direct everyone's attention to the possibility of other options that lie outside that binary. If you want to avoid a slide into facism, but you also don't want to just vote for the lesser evil who will keep supporting a genocide, guess what! You don't have to!

Go look up the Primaries. Find out when and where they're happening. Talk to other people you know about them too. Look up the other candidates in the running, and find someone who you can at least stand to see in the Oval Office. None of them will be perfect, but there has to be someone better than the current selection. And push for them. Push for them, get other people to consider backing that person instead of the decrepit one, and vote in the primaries. And then vote in November too.

It doesn't have to be a matter of choosing between Biden or Trump, if we make sure someone else wins the Primaries instead. Instead of a binary of voting or not voting, consider voting twice.

The systems we have in place suck and need to be heavily rebuilt. But we aren't going to do that overnight, so until then, we really should make the full use of those systems to make sure someone at least halfway decent is in charge, someone willing to help tear down and rebuild those systems instead of just shoring themselves up.

IT DOESN'T HAVE TO BE ONLY BIDEN OR TRUMP. THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX. VOTE IN THE PRIMARIES.